


In Your Heart Shall Burn

by succubusybody



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragon Age, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anon April, Dragon Age AU, Emotional Healing, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, High Fantasy, Kidnapping, Prisoner of War, Red String of Fate, Red Templars (Dragon Age), Unconsciousness, War, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-01-05 07:30:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18361430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/succubusybody/pseuds/succubusybody
Summary: When Rey escaped from the Circle that night, barely managing to hold onto her life, she never thought she'd see Kylo Ren again.Fate had other ideas.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really nervous to post this... it's probably the most plot-heavy fic I've ever written, and it's very quickly becoming my baby! This story takes place right around the same time as Dragon Age: Inquisition. If you've never played Dragon Age, there's an oppressive warden/prisoner relationship between templars and mages - some of that will be mentioned in this chapter and probably in later chapters, too. There's a brief mention of implied sexual assault (did not and does not happen to Rey or any other character in this story - just a fleeting thought that she's known of templars who have abused their authority over mages). 
> 
> There will be some violence in this story. It takes place during a big war in Thedas. 
> 
> Very mild body horror because red crystals grow out of people's skin in later chapters. Nothing horrific, but might squick some people out.
> 
> Sorry for the world's longest author's note.

“They brought me in for questioning today.”

She glances up from her tome to see Poe leaning heavily against the doorframe. The look on his face is enough to make her straighten up, closing the book and shoving it aside to make room for him to sit with her on the bed. He doesn’t move to join her.

“The Seekers did?” Her voice is a whisper, like they might hear; it’s not an unreasonable fear. He nods.

It’s been nearly five years, now, since she’d been transferred to the Circle in Dairsmuid, and he’s been her closest friend from the moment she arrived. She’s never, not once, seen him this worried. Not about anything. Quickly, quietly, she stands, crossing the room to pull him inside and glancing out into the hall to make sure it’s clear before closing the door.

They shouldn’t be talking about the investigation. They shouldn’t say anything that would incriminate the Circle. The entire tower had practically gotten away with _murder_ for as long as it’s been standing - and honestly, it’s a miracle that the Chantry is only now thinking to investigate.

“Did you…” she’s whispering, but it trails off, not sure how to ask. She doesn’t want to sound like she’s accusing him of anything. “... say anything?”

He scoffs, but it’s under his breath; he’s scared, too. “Of course I didn’t! But that doesn’t mean the next sap won’t, and if they do…”

Poe doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t _need_ to. Rey knows what will happen. They’d invoked the Right of Annulment in Kirkwall for the acts of one apostate. Killed countless innocent mages for _one_ apostate. Killed _Finn_ for one apostate.

If they’d kill so indiscriminately as punishment for one man’s actions, what would they do when they found out that they’d essentially been living without rules - without _order_ \- for years? That they’d been training women in the Rivaini traditions of the seers, a form of hedge magic that the Chantry had forbidden?

“Do you know who they’re questioning now, at least?” It would only take one mistake to doom them all. She’s not nearly as worried about the senior mages as she is about the apprentices, young and afraid and likely to be swayed by promises of clemency. Too naive to know that Seekers aren’t their friends.

“No idea.” He shakes his head, turning to open the door. She doesn’t want him to go, but he looks tired. “But it’s bound to be another long day tomorrow.” He pauses in the doorframe, and she thinks he might say something else, but he doesn’t turn around. “Get some rest. Sleep well, Rey.”

And then she’s alone. For now, anyway. Her roommate will have to come back sooner or later.

As she goes to shut the door, a shiny black beetle scuttles past her feet and stops just inside the threshold. _Eugh_. She nudges it out of the way with the toe of her boot before closing the door and getting changed for bed.

\---

She feels it before she hears anything: a hand clasped tightly over her jaw, rough fingers biting into her lips and cheek.

“Don’t scream.”

Rey knows who it is before she even opens her eyes. Her time in Kirkwall had taught her to be nervous of templars that stare just a moment too long in the halls; hearing enough stories of mages who didn’t lock their doors at night and wound up pregnant would do that to you. That sort of thing didn’t happen here in Rivain, from what she could tell, but she’d caught him watching her far too many times to not worry.

And now, here they are. She cracks one eye to confirm it’s him, pale face illuminated by the moonlight streaming through her window. Craning her neck, she sees that her roommate’s bed remains made and untouched. 

Shit.

“I need you to listen to me, and then I need you to do as I say.” Her eyes flit back and notice that he’s in full armor, save the helmet; his greatsword is strapped to his back. Her brows furrow. Knight-Lieutenant Ren always looked serious, but never like this.

Still, she’s got no idea what he wants. She’s afraid of what he might ask, but she doesn’t have much of a choice. When he raises his eyebrows, she nods.

“When I take my hand off your mouth, you are going to get dressed.” He pauses, and she can’t read the expression on his face. “Quickly. And quietly.”

It’s an odd request. He makes another impatient face and she nods again. Looking somewhat relieved, he takes a step back, standing in front of the door.

Probably just as well; even if she could try to dart from the room, he’d cut her down when he got his hands on her. He watches as she pulls her robes from the armoire and then, much to her surprise, he turns around.

She doesn’t know how to feel about the situation or the apparent modesty. If he’s here to have his way with her, she thinks, she’d much prefer he get it over with. Dragging it out… she’s anxious. Is he going to take her somewhere? That couldn’t be good.

As she clears her throat to let him know she’s decent, a scream sounds out from somewhere else within the Circle, desperate and terrified. Her eyes widen, flickering to his as he turns around, but he looks… tired. Maybe a bit sad.

Another scream echoes through the halls, followed by muffled shouting and a loud clatter. Oh, no, she realizes. Oh no oh no oh no. Footsteps thunder past her bedroom door, echoing the heartbeat pounding in her chest: it’s happening. She’d heard horror stories of what happened when they invoked the Right in Kirkwall, but she’d always imagined it to be structured and formal: mages lined up against the edge of a mass grave.

But they’re killing them in their sleep.

“I’m going to open this door,” he says, drawing her back to reality; she can barely hear him as another scream, much closer by, threatens to deafen her. “When I do, I need you to run from me.”

He doesn’t need to tell her twice.

The light that streams from the hallway half-blinds her before her eyes adjust, but she stumbles out, anyway, as soon as he’s far enough out of her way. To her left is the sound of metal on flesh; to her right is the sound of metal on metal. Another door opens and a mage whose name she can’t remember steps out in her sleepwear, barely awake and incredibly confused.

Ren’s armor clanks shifts behind her. She remembers what she’s supposed to be doing.

Heading right seems safer - better to slip past mages who are fighting back than walk through a room of mages being slaughtered. Ren may be stronger, have better weaponry - but his armor will slow him down if she just keeps moving.

The doors will be locked. This much she knows. As she passes the stairwell, she doesn’t bother heading for the ground floor; the thought of seeing apprentices being cut down is enough to make her sick. The hallway she’s running down gives way to one of the several common rooms on the second floor.

She stumbles, going slack-jawed at the scene before her. Mages and templars that she’d known to be friends were staff to sword; to her left, a hallmate of hers draws a blade across his palms, eyes rolling into the back of his head as he draws forbidden power from the blood that wells up. She wheels to the right just in time for her to see an apprentice she’d been training just the week before fall prey to possession.

The air is heavy with the weight of desperation.

Rey has never seen anything like it.

A large hand on her back shoves her forward roughly, and she turns to see Ren, looking impatient and yet just as desperate and heartbroken as the rest of them. Maybe more. When she doesn’t move, he draws his sword and shoves her again.

It’s a kindness, maybe. A warning. But he’ll kill her, she knows; he has to. Orders are orders.

She carefully darts around the perimeter of the room, dodging this way and that when a fight or Seeker or templar gets too close for comfort. It’s not safe here in the open. Her options are to fight or hide, and she isn’t trained in combat like they are - she’s a _healer_. The moment she comes across a corridor, she ducks down it.

And, of course, he follows. 

Her heart sinks as she realizes that, blinded by fear, she’s picked a dead end: these doors are all locked, or closets; the hall cuts off abruptly with a window. 

When she turns to face him, she thinks that he might look remorseful. He sheaths his sword, but she isn’t foolish enough to believe that he’d really spare her. Confusion clouds her face as he pulls a dagger from his belt and tosses it to her feet, where it clatters on the stone floor as he raises his fists.

It’s hardly a fair fight. With all of his armor, she’d have to get awfully close to do any damage.

But he doesn’t give her much time to think about it, charging forward as she scrabbles to pick up the blade. He crashes into her, toppling them both to the ground, and she screams, aiming the dagger toward his face.

He catches her wrist with one hand, the other forearm bearing down on her collarbone. She presses her other palm against the hilt, gritting her teeth.

Rey wins just as he ducks to the side, the blade lancing across his skin rather than driving straight into his skull like she’d intended. His roar is deafening as he releases her, huge hand splaying across the split skin; through his fingers, she can see an angry red line slashed across the right side of his face, eyebrow to jawline.

She’s hardly sorry.

With a grunt, she pushes him off of her and scrambles to her feet. Rey can hear the scrape of armor as he clumsily drags himself up, too; she turns to look over her shoulder, just once, and sees him leaning heavily against the wall, expression unreadable.

It doesn’t matter. She turns back to face the window and grits her teeth. It’ll hurt, sure, but there’s a chance she’d survive it. If she stays here… 

She doesn’t give herself a chance to think about what will surely happen if she stays. She covers her face with her arm and runs.

Glass cuts at her arms and her legs as she shatters through the window, and the ground rushes up faster than she thought it would from the second floor - though she casts a spell as quickly as she can to catch her fall, she still lands winded. Coughing, she rolls onto her back.

From the window, still holding his face together with one hand, he stares back.

That’s the only motivation she needs to pull herself to her feet, bruised and bleeding but _still alive_ as the Circle tower starts to go up in flames behind her. If she can get to the coast - if she can make it to a ship before a templar comes after her - she might be alright.

Against all odds, she might make it out of this alive.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter was something like a prologue, this chapter picks up about 1 year later! Very special shoutout to my best friend and wife for life Milk... thanks for being a bang-up beta despite not being a Reylo.

It’s quiet when she wakes, as it had been for some months now. Adjusting to life in the forest had been harder than adjusting to life in the Circle had been; when she’d arrived in Rivain, no one had been trying to kill her. When she’d arrived in the Brecilian Forest, on the other hand, it’d taken seven months of sleeping with one eye open before she and the Dalish clan nearby had learned to trust one another enough not to worry.

And even then, the truce was tenuous at best, founded on the equal parts fear and hatred they both felt towards the Chantry. She offers them healing services when they’re desperate enough to request it. They allow her to live in their vicinity in return, despite her being human. She knows she couldn’t ask for much more.

Rey is safer taking her chances here than she is going back into the cities, though, not knowing whether or not the Chantry is hunting her down like she’s a rabid dog they need to put down. And if they were to find her, there is no doubt in her mind that they’d do just that.

She’s slow to drag herself from the blanket she calls a bed, already dreading the day of foraging that lies ahead of her. The solitude, along with an elf or two that had taken pity on her, had taught her a lot: how to skin an animal, which plants were safe to eat and which would cause an ugly and painful death. She’d learned the routes that tradesmen and travellers alike took, often leaving behind things that had fallen from their carts in transit. Shed learned (by trial and one very dangerous error) how to steal from sleeping camps, though it was her least favorite thing to do - scavenging felt safer.

But in many ways, she still feels horribly unprepared for life in the wilderness. Sure, she can set traps for small animals who won’t see it coming, but the scars that mar her right thigh and arm remind her every time that she dresses that she’s no match for the wolves and bears and _predators_ that called this forest home long before her arrival and would continue to do so long after she passes.

There is no doubt in her mind: her survival is due to luck and little else. Finding the mostly-demon-free ruins? Lucky. Finding supplies? Lucky. Waking up in the morning? Lucky.

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she starts to gather her few belongings, shooing a beetle off of her tattered bag with a wave of her hand. Anywhere else and she’d crush it, but this is more its home than hers, so it doesn’t seem right.

She’d hidden her pack for a while, but she doesn’t bother anymore. No one ever comes this far into the catacombs.

Her stomach growls as she makes her way towards the surface, her hunger only made worse by the faint whisper of smoke in the air. A campfire, maybe? Someone cooking nearby? Someone friendly? The hope is enough to spur Rey along quickly.

As she approaches the mouth of the tunnel, though, close enough that her torch no longer becomes necessary, she can see that it’s no campfire. There’s too much smoke for that, and it’s far too dark. Brows furrowing, she breaks into a sprint - something is wrong, and while she doesn’t know what, maybe she can help. If not with the fire, than surely with any injuries.

Or worse, casualties.

She all but stumbles into the clearing, wide-eyed as she tries to determine where the smoke is coming from. It billows up from behind the tree line in thick, angry clouds. Just above the tops of the trees, she can see the warm amber glow of fire filtering through the screen of ash and soot.

Rey has seen enough accidental forest fires to know that this isn’t one. It’s too large, and it’s far too violent. This is intentional.

The sound of screaming draws her gaze back down just in time to see a dark-haired woman stumbling into the clearing, an elf if her short stature and pointed ears were any indication. When the woman trips and falls, she runs forward to help her - but stops short at the sight of three men riding into the clearing on horses. One of them has his sword drawn, arm raised to strike.

She knows that she has to do _something_ , but doesn’t realize she already has until she sees the rock collide with his helmet and feels the force she’d used to throw it echo as an ache in her shoulder. While she knows it didn’t hurt, not through metal, she’s pleased to see that it was at least enough to draw his attention away from the woman, the surprise forcing him to jerk on his reigns and his horse to confusedly turn to the right. It’s enough to allow the woman time enough to get to her feet.

One of them says something, though not quite loud enough to hear, and the other two men follow after the woman as she vanishes back into the forest. The templar that remains takes the reigns and whistles to his mount, and it is only them that Rey realizes two terrible things at once:

Firstly, she’s made herself a target to a warrior who otherwise wouldn’t have known she was there. Secondly, there’s something wrong with this templar, and she can tell even through his armor and helmet. It’s hard to see, but she thinks she can see the faintest hint of a red glow around the edges of his breastplate. While she’s only certain what one of these things means for her wellbeing, neither of them are good.

Rey runs back into the tunnel. Her only chance is to outrun him; she doesn’t know these ruins well, but it’s likely that he doesn’t, either, and she certainly won’t outrun in the open. Not while he’s on horseback. She starts to reach for the torch she’d abandoned, but realizes it would harm her more than help by giving away her direction; if she can make it out of the catacombs and into the burial chamber, she can both see and hide long enough to wait for him to leave. 

To guide her way, she reaches out to brush her fingertips along the wall, grounding herself to something as she tries to picture the path she’d taken in the catacombs as a map in her mind. Every so often, she tries to pause and listen for the sound of a horse’s hooves against the stone floor, but all she can hear is the rush of her own blood and the thunder of her heart in her chest.

Which means he’s either deemed her not worth the effort and given up, or he’s on foot.

She doesn’t have the time or the luck to investigate and figure which one it is. Assuming the worst, she presses onward. 

The darkness in front of her turns solid, startling her as she collides with something wooden, not stone. Rey pauses, ears pricked as she tries to listen for a telltale sign that her own clumsiness has given away her position. But she hears nothing: no footsteps, no labored breathing, no drawing of a sword. Her hands skate along the door and fumble for the handle, holding her breath as she pushes it open just far enough to slip through, like a single breath would be enough to make the door creak.

It doesn’t. The burial chamber yawns before her. The sense of relief brings tears to her eyes as she quietly shuts the door, leaning back against it and releasing the tension in a single, long breath as her eyes scan the area for the perfect hiding place.

Across the burial chamber, another door opens. The templar spills into the room and, upon seeing her, draws his sword. Rey must have kept breathing out, because it seems that all the air is gone from her lungs. She’s suffocating. That might be a kinder fate than being put to sword by one of the Chantry’s hound dogs. 

Here the light is dimmer. She can see more clearly a strange, unfamiliar red glow that something beneath his armor emits. Rey shakes her head as he takes a step forward, as though that would stop him. 

He draws his weapon, and she recognizes him even before he reaches a hand up to remove his helmet. Even with red crystals growing from the crossguard, which certainly hadn’t been there last time, she’d recognize the sword anywhere. She had nightmares about it for months.

“Are you here to finish the job?” She tries to be brave, chin jutting out defiantly, but her voice breaks halfway through the sentence and betrays her. He doesn’t say anything, instead tossing his helmet to the side with a hollow, rattling clang. So he’s not here to talk, then. Rey figures that’s answer enough and tries to get ready, blinking away the threat of tears.

Now that he’s closer, she can see that his eyes burn an unnatural red. _Red_ , matching the crystals on his blade and the crystals that, with his helmet removed, she can now see are embedded in the skin just beneath his jaw. Crystals that emanate that same red glow, suggesting that there’s more on his chest, hidden by armor.

She’s been around templars all her life. Never before has she seen anything like this.

Her eyes flicker up to his face, red eyes and all, and the stern set of her jaw. She isn’t willing to turn her back on him long enough to pull the door open and run back into the darkness of the catacombs, and she won’t be able to outmaneuver him in the burial chamber.

Which leaves her exactly one option. 

She reaches out, feeling for that thin cord that ties her - that ties all mages - to the Fade. The connection that makes her who she is, that allows her to twist reality to her will. That’s all magic is, really: a disturbance, as though she’s pulling a single thread from the moment’s tapestry.

And, just like that, it’s gone. Vanished all at once. Her jaw drops, eyes losing focus as she searches for the familiar feeling frantically, all in vain.

The connection had been with her since birth, though she hadn’t known what it was for several years. A feeling just as familiar and normal to her as a heartbeat is to those without magic. She’s never felt this before: a hollow space in her soul where it used to live.

Empty. She feels empty.

Rey glances up at him, steadily approaching, sword still drawn but not quite raised to strike. If she hadn’t been so shellshocked by having the Fade ripped from her, she would have been confused; instead, she gapes at him, as though in shock.

It’s his doing, she knows. This is what the templars are trained to do as protectors of mankind from the dangers of magic. It’s their purpose, their mission, and the Chantry equips them with the means to do so.

And the fact that she’s never felt this before means that he hadn’t bothered to block her connection to the Fade before, when he’d tried to kill her in Rivain. When he’d been ordered to kill her in Rivain. She’d been too flustered by the sudden threat and his closeness to try, then, but she hadn’t felt this emptiness.

He hadn’t taken it from her then. Why did he take it from her now?

Rey grits her teeth and swipes tears from her eyes as he comes closer, her eyes locking with his as she presses back against the block. She knows it’s useless, but a flicker of hope inside tells her maybe it’s not. His expression is nearly unreadable, an emotion hidden in his eyes that she can’t quite place - not the look of an executioner, but far from the look of a friend. A pained look, as though he’s being tortured by choice.

“Please,” she whispers, the toll of fighting uselessly against the block starting to weigh heavily on her. “You don’t need to do this.”

He stops his steady advance, now only a foot or so in front of her. It would be so easy, now, for him to cut her down. Her robes hardly offer any protection, and she can’t use magic to defend herself.

But he doesn’t. Hope flickers up again, just barely, in the back of her mind.

She watches, eyes pleading, as he presses his lips together, and thinks she may have gotten through to him. 

Instead, he doubles down, the weight of his presence in her mind too forceful to fight against. Her head spins, and she thinks she feels him catch her as she loses consciousness.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta is on vacation, so pardon me for any issues!
> 
> TW: violence, implied threat of sexual assault (not from either of the MCs and not graphic), and mild misogynistic language. Skip to end notes if you want more details on this and don't mind spoilers.

She wakes with a start. Even before her eyes are fully open, she knows where she is: the Fade.

The Silence he’d cast must have worn off… but something feels different. _Wrong_. It all looks the same - same darkness, same upside-down nature compared to her realm, same Black City hovering in the horizon - but the sound is off. Rey has walked the ever-changing paths of the Fade every night since she was a child; she remembers the sound, hollow and endless, as though you’re standing at the mouth of a cave and you know not how far down into the earth it reaches.

Instead, there’s nothing. She can see the water that drips from the free-floating stalactites, and she can see the loose gravel that must be crunching beneath her with each step, but there’s nothing. Not even her own breathing makes a noise.

Frowning, she turns, looking for something, anything to help guide her path. A spirit, a wisp… even a ghost would be welcome.

And then, like an answer to her prayers, she sees it: someone in the distance, just close enough to still be visible as they walk away from her. It could be a demon, she knows, but what if it isn’t? What if it’s her guide? They’ve come in stranger forms before.

The figure starts to flicker out of view. Rey breaks into a sprint, terrified by the thought of being left alone.

As she grows closer, she can see that it’s a man: broad-shouldered, a head of thick dark hair all that’s visible above his heavy cloak. He walks slowly, but doesn’t turn around to see who might be chasing him - if he can hear her at all. She doesn’t get the impression that he’s giving her the chance to catch up, either; he’s just… wandering.

“Hey!” Though she feels the shout strain her vocal chords, desperate as ever, she is still unable to hear it. The man pauses, and she thinks he might have heard her, but still does not turn, instead taking up his lazy, ambling gait once more. Rey frowns and pushes herself harder, her lungs and legs both burning as she closes the last few yards between them. Right behind him, now, her hand grasps the thick black fabric of his cloak. He stops. 

“Please,” she begs, for this must be a benevolent spirit, or else she would’ve been attacked or tempted long before now. “Something is wrong. I can’t hear anything.”

Slowly, the man turns. Rey’s face pales as she sees the all-too-familiar face. _Him_. It doesn’t make any sense; perhaps it’s a demon, after all, intent on torturing her in her dreams. She shakes her head and takes a step back.

The thing impersonating the monster of a man that haunts her dreams opens its mouth, and when it speaks, it’s as though the sound is coming from inside her own head.

“You need to wake up.”

* * *

She’s thrown back into her realm with a force she isn’t used to; her body lurches as she returns to it with a gasp. An arm tightens around her waist to keep her from falling off the horse they’re on; she stiffens at the feeling of his touch and the uncertainty that’s suddenly washing over her. If he’d wanted to finish off the job, he could have made her tranquil back in the crypts, or even killed her. It would have been within his right, and it would have been pathetically easy when she was unconscious.

But he didn’t do either of those things. Instead he’s taken her… somewhere. The fact that she doesn’t know why, or where they’re heading, doesn’t make the situation any better.

Though he knows she’s awake, he doesn’t say a word; she can’t find the courage to ask a question she isn’t sure she wants to know the answer to. They ride through the forest in silence, passing through trees that all look the same and rocky formations she’s almost certain she’s seen before. But all of the Brecilian Forest looks the exact same, and she knows that something looking vaguely familiar means absolutely nothing.

Eventually, the silence is broken by the distant sound of chatter and laughter and iron meeting iron. The trees thin out, and her mouth runs dry at the sight before her.

A fortress springs up from the horizon - Therinfal Redoubt. She’s read of it; a fortress near the Brecilian Forest, once used by the Seekers but abandoned for financial reasons. But it’s certainly not abandoned anymore. As they ride through the gates, men and women in templar armor spar with practice swords, or carry water from one building to the next. Some are repairing a wall, perched on what looks like dangerous crudely made scaffolding.

And the part that shocks her the most is that there’s so _many_ of them. On more than a few, she spots that same eerie red glow; some are far worse than Ren, large crystals protruding from their backs and faces so that they look almost inhuman.

What’s wrong with them, she can’t tell, but this isn’t right or normal. There’s no good reason for templars to be building a stronghold in the middle of the forest - especially when so many of them are… ill.

Ren gathers the reins in one hand and pulls back, his other arm still wrapped securely around her waist to keep her from falling (or escaping - or perhaps a bit of both). A terribly young man, even younger than her, runs to help secure the horse as they dismount.

“Knight-Commander Ren, welcome back.” _Knight-Commander?_ Rey frowns as he carefully pulls her down from the horse and places her by his side, one large hand remaining wrapped around her upper arm. He’s been promoted, then. As the young man turns from the post, her eyes widen - his are unnaturally red, and incredibly bloodshot. He pays her no mind. “Hux has been summoned by the general for an update, so he’s asked you tell him how the mission went.”

She hears Ren grunt behind her. “Tell him to meet me in my chambers, then.”

They pull away before the young soldier has a chance to answer, the suddenness of the turn nearly causing her to stumble. She gets the sense that if she were to fall, he’d sooner drag her than allow her the chance to regain her balance, so she hurries after him as they wind through the halls.

Nearly everyone they pass gives him a nod in greeting. He _has_ been promoted, she’s certain of it; she knows respect when she sees it. But this is no Circle. Why would they have an outpost? Especially here, in the middle of nowhere?

He slows to a stop in front of a thick wooden door with the insignia of the Templar Order painted on it in bright red, pushing it open with one arm and gently pushing her forward with the other. 

If there is a nicer room in the fortress, she’d certainly like to see it; this must have been the first to be restored. A war table sits to one corner, red and black figures carefully placed; to the other side, by the fireplace, is a bed with real linens and an ornate foot locker. Being the boss, it would seem, did not come without perks - or maybe she’s been in the woods for long enough that she’s easily impressed.

“Sit.” Rey’s lips press into a scowl as he speaks to her like a _dog_ , but he turns away from her before she has a chance to protest, planting his hands on the edge of the war table to lean over it like a master chess player. She huffs air through her nose and takes a seat on the chest at the foot of the bed, waiting for him to say something else, but he doesn’t.

She hates the silence. It leaves her too much room to _guess_.

Her thoughts are interrupted not much later when the door swings open and a man she can only assume to be Hux steps through. His bright red hair matches the supernatural glow of the vein in his neck, and when he smiles at her, it’s enough to make her recoil.

“I’d figured that the mission went well, Kylo, but I didn’t expect it to have gone _this_ well.” His eyes don’t leave her as he walks towards the other man, clapping a hand on his shoulder as though to congratulate him. Rey’s brows furrow as he winks at her. He reminds her of a snake.

“It went well.” Kylo’s voice is tense; she can feel his irritation from across the room as easy as heat from the sun. “Tell General Samson that the forest has been cleared. We’ll leave a small group here to maintain control and ride for the Hinterlands.”

The red-haired man nods, finally tearing his gaze away from her to raise an eyebrow at Kylo. “I’ll leave first thing in the morning.” He tosses a sideways glance in her direction. Her skin crawls. “Once you’ve had your fun with her, what’ll I have to do to get you to share?”

Rey’s heart drops into her stomach, and she shifts her gaze to Kylo. Is that why she’s here? Has that been his plan?

She sees his grip tighten on the edge of the table. “You won’t touch her.” The words are clipped and harsh; it’s somewhat of a relief, but it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s safe from _him_. The air prickles with an uncomfortable sort of electricity that the other man doesn’t seem to notice as he laughs, giving Kylo’s shoulder a shake.

“Don’t be so selfish, Ren. I’ll even share my bitch with you, yeah? Sweeten the deal.”

It happens so quickly that if she’d blinked, she would have missed it. Kylo’s hand finds the other man’s throat with a deadly precision, and he backs him into the wall as though it’s nothing. Rey stumbles off the chest, backing away from them until she can’t anymore, and even then pushing herself into the cobbled stone wall in hopes she could melt into it and disappear. 

She’s seen people die before, but never like this, and never this _close_. Hux’s pale hands scratch and scrabble at the black leather glove uselessly, and his face begins to purple.

“If you touch her, I’ll kill you.” Kylo’s voice is cold and detached; it sends shivers down her spine, even though the threat isn’t directed at her. She watches as he holds the other man there for a moment longer, staring stony-faced into the other man’s panic. His eyes make it clear that he isn’t getting any joy from this, but there’s no sympathy in them, either.

And just when she thinks he might kill the man, he lets go. Hux struggles to pick himself up, hoarsely gasping for air as he rubs his bruised throat.

“That goes for everyone. Make sure you let them know.” Kylo looks a thousand feet tall, she thinks, staring down on Hux like he is. She isn’t sure if that was a kindness. She isn’t sure if she should be afraid.

They both watch as the red-haired man tries to act like he has a shred of dignity left, as though he isn’t stalking from the room with his tail tucked between her legs. Rey doesn’t move from where she’s pressed against the wall, even after he’s gone. When she looks to Kylo, he’s staring at the empty door frame, and she wishes she could tell what he’s thinking.

“I’m going to get you some food,” he says finally, his voice much softer than it had been only moments before. He starts to leave, but pauses just in front of the door. She watches as he turns his head just far enough to the side that she can hear him. “I can’t guarantee your safety outside of this room. I’d suggest you not leave it.”

And then he’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hux incorrectly assumes why Kylo captured Rey and asks him to share her, implies he does the same with one of his own prisoners. Gets shut down real quick.


End file.
